My Favorite Doodle

The challenge this month at Beyond Greys is all about Doodling - hand drawn or etched creations. It's such a fun challenge and I guess I'm not the only one who thinks so. Literally every day when I check my blogger dashboard I see one or 2 projects created just for this challenge. All the entries, combined with the super awesome inspiration over at Beyond Greys - (I mean like WOW - Pooja's waves are just amazing and Snehal's bird is so clever and cute) just got me in the mood so here is my creation.

From my school days, my favorite doodle was always eyes. I loved drawing eyes - open eyes, closed eyes, beautiful eyes. There have been countless college lectures I have doodled through all the while, immersed in the eyes. So when I saw this challenge, there was only one thing I could do - relive my doodling days with some mesmerizing eyes. 

My other inspiration was the O Sanam video - I guess thinking of college made me think of that gorgeous song and that sad beautiful video, and that's kind of how this Arabic princess look came together. I did the skin with my copic markers - I only have the skin shades. The green I did with BIC markers. I completed it with this amazing DCVW La Creme pattern paper - you can't make out but  all the black flowers on this sheet are velvet... soooo pretty!! Got it from ItsyBitsy of course where I could just pick up the single sheet and saved some money. 

And this is the inside of the card... such a romantic cover had to have a romantic sentiment. I etched this one with my Cameo and a pen holder - 'I only have eyes for you'. Another reason to get nostalgic because that's kind of how I felt in college - met my husband when I was in 2nd year and only had eyes for him. 

Ta Ta for now :)

UPDATE 13/3/2013 - Won the Beyond Grey Challenge for this card! Yippee!

Baby Scrapbook Pages - Celebrations

In the first year of a baby's life, there are usually 3 to 4 occasions which are celebrated. For my kids, there was a 28th day ceremony, the Christening, first Christmas, first Easter and then first birthday. For my friend's baby, there were some special occasions she wanted to preserve and this section of my baby scrapbook was dedicated to those occasions in little Anya's life. 

Every section of my book has a header page and this was the header page for the Celebration section. A big garish and lavish cake which was embossed using some of my favorite ItsyBitsy folders. Then oodles of pearls and beads everywhere.

 This is the page for baby's first Diwali. I wanted it to be grand and festive and I was kind of at a loss for a couple of days until I found in my stash my all time favorite ItsyBitsy glitter foam sheets. Yay!! The foam sheets formed the background and the orange intricate design is cameo cut.

My friend lives in Australia but both her parents and her husbands parents have a major base in Bangalore so naturally when they came down with the baby, they had a bash to welcome Anya to Bangalore. It's difficult to see but the title is actually Welcoming Anya to Bangalore. I went with a really busy pattern paper background and just touched up with some balloons, streamers and a present border at the bottom. 

Finally this lucky baby will have the pleasure of attending weddings. Her father's sister is getting married in her first year so this page is to add all the adorable photos of Anya in wedding clothes. I cut out the heart swirly background on my cameo and added a white heart for the left side title and a blank red heart for Ash to add her notes. Gotta say this was one of my favorite pages in the book because not only did it turn out so nice, it was one of the quickest to do!

To see the all the other pages of this book click HERE and I've also added some pages to the ItsyBitsy blog which you can view below:

Baby Shower Page

Gifts Wishes and Emails Header Page

First Words and First Teeth Page

Mama's Belly Page

Before the Baby Pages

A Rosette Card.... For 50 rupees!

Has my blog titled intrigued you? It's a really funny story! But I'll get to that in a bit. I've been wanting to do rosettes for a while and when I saw the sketch at Mojo Monday. I thought it was a perfect opportunity. I also had some pattern paper scraps remaining from a previous project and they happened to totally go with the Dynamic Duo color combination this week which is monochromatic and this also happens to be the challenge over at Tuesday Throwdown. So all things put together, this is my card.

 Now on to the story. About a month and a half ago, my apartment building had this carnival and I put up a stall of all my cards and crafts. It sold like hot cakes and my major market were young girls - from age 5 to 14! A few days after the carnival, one little girl came to me and said, 'Aunty I didn't see your cards at the Carnival. All my friends were saying you were selling such beautiful cards. I didn't get a chance to come by. I really want a card... Do you have any left?

I said, 'Sorry - no all my cards were sold.'
She said, 'Oh Aunty can you make one for me, I really want one'.
I said, 'Ok sure - it will be Rs. 70.
She said, 'Ok thanks'.

A few days later  as I was sitting in the playground with my kids, she came running to me,
'Aunty, have you started my card?'
'No not yet', I replied.
'Oh thank goodness!' she said, 'Actually Aunty, can you make a 50 rupees card? Not a 70 rupees card?'
I giggled to myself and said 'Ok sure'

Then yesterday she ran up to me again, 'Aunty, I want to give the card on Monday - is it ready?'
'Oh ya.. I forgot about that', I said, 'Ok I will give it to you tomorrow'
'Thanks so much Aunty!' And she ran off but not before saying,

'Only 50 rupees ok Aunty!'

And this is the card she is getting. Even now as I type, I am giggling to myself. Sometimes you need comments like this to stay grounded, don't you think!

Have a great Sunday folks!

Baby is Growing Up - Scrapbook Pages

The baby scrapbook I made for Ashwina is no less than 30 pages long and when closed, it's 4 inches tall. There is no doubt I overdid it.. haha but today I gave it to her and she was delighted. So I guess no harm done. This blog post is dedicated to the 'Growing Up' section of the book. I had such fun putting it together as it's so exciting documenting the first year of a little one's life.

This is the Growing Up Header page. Love the little footprints slowly becoming larger. And of course everything is pink, lavender and pastel... for a precious baby girl.  All the embellishments are cameo cut. I've kind of mastered the software so I'm having a blast designing the details myself.

This page is the feeding record page. The image is digi stamp which I printed and colored. It formed the front page of a little booklet in which Ash could document all the foods little Anya was fed at various stage of her early life. 

This section is to track the baby's height and weight. Don't you just love the little clothes line of baby vests for the title. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!

More posts to come - there were after all 30 pages. Ha Ha!

Baby Scrapbook Cover

For those who are following my work, you know I''ve been CONSUMED with a scrapbook for my friend's daughter and I am happy to say that it's finally DONE! So in the next few days you will be bombarded with pictures from the various pages I did, but today it's all about the cover. A girly, pretty, flowery cover for a lovely little baby girl. 

Here are some close-ups of the little details. Calalilies on one corner of the oval, roses on the opposite corner and some glittered hearts for the top.

       

I was working on this till the wee hours of the morning last night and I have to say I am so delighted with the outcome. But I also have to say... if I don't do a Baby Book for another 12 months, I will be one happy crafter!

A Scrapbook Page for Major Milestones

I'm back with another scrapbook page post. I've been fervently working to finish this book up before my dear friend Ashwina leaves. She too is itching for me to hand it over so that she can start populating it so a lot of my posts in the coming days will be scrapbook pages. For this page, I have used the color combination at Dynamic Duos as a guide. The colors are Pink Pirouette and Pool Party.... how fun is that! So here's what I came up with.

I've provided four sections for the four major developmental milestones: First Rolled over, First Sat Up, First Crawled and First Walked. I made little frames with the titles and inside I added a pattern paper flap so that Ash can add photos on the top and details of when, where etc inside. 

Here's a better view of each page.  

I am making this book out of pre-bound scrapbook from ItsyBitsy so I really have no choice about the colors of the pages. This topic opened out at a stage in the book where the left hand side was pink and the right hand site was white so when I added a lace trim to both pages - I made sure it was a white trim on the pink page and a pink trim on the white. Also did you noticed I managed to find diamond shaped rhinestones to compliment the diamond design on the flap. Cool huh!

Here's a little collage of all the embellishments so you can get a better look at all the elements. 

Don't you just love those little cutouts? The baby shoes, the baby crawling, the mother helping the child to walk... I cut all those out on the cameo so I could size them as I wanted and make them in the color I wanted. Also the bows at the bottom of each flap are placed such that the flap remains closed when the page is first opened. Hope it works.

Finally here's the inspiration graphic from Dynamic Duos. I gotta thank them for this inspiration. It worked really wonderfully for this project. Thanks Ladies!

Basket of Roses Card with Envelope

Some of you may have seen my post this morning on the ItsyBitsy Blog of a Basket of Roses Card. Thank you all for the lovely comments, it's so reassuring to get your support. The colors I used for this creation were inspired by the Inspired by Stamping Inspiration Challenge picture for this week. The combination is white, light brown and red which became my pallet for this concept. I also made a matching envelope for the card and here's a look at the set. 

The card has a woven bask at the base and the top is filled with bountiful and superfluous lush red roses. For the first time I found the greatest challenge of the colors was incorporating white which I was finally able to do with the 'Thank you Tag'. Here's a closer look at the envelopes. 

Since it is a 3D card with all the roses protruding from the card, I had to make a box envelope which is almost three quarters of an inch thick. I extended the woven basket effect to the envelope flap and made the body of the envelope with the same card stock as the the roses. Then I cut a rose background which in the same shade of red card stock which I glued over the base red making it look like the envelope is embossed with a rose design. Lovely isn't it!

Here's a look at the card upright from different angles. I really had fun packing in the roses and I think that paid off. Here is the inspiration pic from IBSIC challenges. As I look at it I realize that I was inspired by more than the color. The heart packed with roses has obviously spoken to me... hee hee!

I have done a full video tutorial of how I made the card. It was really easy and inexpensive. So pop on over to the ItsyBitsy Blog and let me know what you think. All the supplies used is on the ItsyBitsy blog as well.

Also entering it into Incy Wincy Designs. They have asked us to add texture and with all the weaving I've done, I think I definitely added some serious texture. 

Then I noticed Craft Room Challenge is asking that we make our own embellishment. My whole card is one big handmade embellishment hehe.. so I'm entering this challenge as well. 

Ta ta for now...

A Scrapbook Page for Email Wishes

I've been working on a baby scrapbook for my dear friend Ashwina who delivered a beautiful baby girl a couple of months ago. Last night I put together the page for all the email wishes she received when little Aanya was born. I used the current color scheme at Play Date Cafe as inspiration and here's what I created. 

The page is intended to look like a computer screen with a keyboard. The screen is a flap with the text, 'You've Got Mail' and when you open the flap, Ashwina will have a nice little space to glue down all the emails she received, like a paper pad. I made use of the pattern paper sale at ItsyBitsy for all the designs. Half off on some really great designs is quite irresistible. I also added a few glitter strips to give some bling and dimension. Here's how it looks when the flap is closed. Just like a computer screen right!

The color schemes at Play Date Cafe are always a treat because they're different and sometimes quite challenging. I hope I did justice to the combination. I just texted Ashwina a picture of this page and the first thing she said was 'Love the Colors!' Here's the PDCC inspiration image.

Ashwina leaves in a couple of weeks so I'm heavily into her scrapbook. Look forward to many more layout posts in the coming weeks. Cheerio!